A couple of weeks back I was in the Lake District enjoying some walking and photography. It was during this time that I came across a rather high contrast scene so reached for my filter kit. Regular readers may know that I am a huge fan of the Lee Seven 5 series of filters which are ideal for Micro 43 cameras. The filters may be expensive but the kit is very well engineered with high quality materials.
Anyway, I pulled out my filter holder and tried to slot in one of the ND grads. At first it seemed to fit but then I noticed it was lose. On closer inspection I found out that one of the screws which secures the blades into which the filters slow was missing. Now the blades were lose and so was the filter.
Back home I decided to email Lee Filters to see where I could find a replacement screw as I have never seen these being sold. Result! There was a very fast response from the Lee Customer Service team asking for my address so they could post me a replacement screw.
What I didn’t mention in all this is that I left it quite late to contact Lee Filters and was now facing my next trip without a usable filter holder. Fortunately Lee acted on the email very quickly and the day after my sending my postal address an envelope arrived containing not 1 but 4 of the screws together with the 4 plastic spacers which are also used in the filter holder. What great customer service.
A big thank you to the team at Lee for acting so quickly. You saved my trip.
The Lightweight Photographer 
That’s not surprising, Robin. Lee have always given me excellent service. They have made custom gear for me a couple of times, always without any fuss.
I had heard of them creating custom gear for people before but hadn’t experienced it myself.
I had a similar problem recently. While no screws were lost, all 4 became lose. The fix – a very small dab of lock tight blue and now the screws are set unless I want to remove them.
That’s a good idea. I had noticed a couple of the others were a little lose. Thanks for the tip.
Hi, I was really interested in your comments on the Lee Seven filter system. I bought an Olympus OM D 5.with a view to weaning myself off my beautiful but very heavy Canon 5d iii. I didn’t want to go to the expense of another Lee filter system so bought an adaptor and use my big filters with the Olympus. It works but the filters are definitely more difficult to position accurately. I am just wondering whether to go to the expense of the smaller Lee system. Do you think there are lots of advantages.
The fitlers are excellent. It’s a small system which is very protable and much easier to carry than the 100mm filters. The holder and adapters are well engineered and it it doesn’t vignette on any of my lenses. You could go for cheaper options such as the HiTech 67 (which I also have) but they do give a colour cast. The Lee Seven 5 is neutral. The Big and Little Stoppers are also nice filters which I use a lot. The only downside is the expense but even that seems reasonable in comparison to the 100mm range.
HI Robin,
I have had a similar experience with Lee Filters, just excellent customer service.
They do seem to be excellent. I really like the Seven 5 filters also which is the key thing. If the product was no good then it doesn’t matter how great the service is. It’s nice to have both though.